nhs

MPs on an influential parliamentary committee have launched an inquiry into England’s sustainability and transformation plans (STPs) that could lead to significant changes in how GPs work. MPs on the health select committee announced they are launching an inquiry into STPs, prompted by last...

The junior doctor and Devon Air Ambulance crew member whose body was found at her home in Devon had written online about the pressure of life working in the NHS. Dr Rebecca Ovenden, 32, was found dead at 9.25am on Tuesday, March 28. Police were called to her home in Brecon Close, Hartley...

Former health secretary Alex Neil has said a separate "health tax" should be introduced in Scotland to pay for essential improvements to the NHS. The proposal was one of the recommendations in a 10-point plan outlined by the SNP MSP. Mr Neil said the plan for a tax specifically for the NHS was...

NHS England has said the health service will need more registered nurses by 2020 and has announced a series of reforms to try to increase numbers. The national body has also set out ambitions to boost key clinical workforce numbers as part of its new delivery plan, published today and titled...

A record number of EU nationals left the NHS last year, renewing fears that Brexit could exacerbate a staffing crisis. The figures, compiled by NHS Digital, prompted medical leaders to call for more reassurances to European workers about their future in the UK. A total of 17,197 EU staff...

Patients will face longer delays for operations after the NHS decided to shelve one of its most important waiting time targets as part of its ambitious survival plan, which will also result in hundreds of thousands of people being denied surgery. Simon Stevens, NHS England’s chief executive...

Imagine the scene. Up and down the country, local NHS leaders are crowded into meeting rooms discussing information transfers and ambulatory care, when someone jumps up and shouts "I've had enough of sticky toffee puddings". Confused? You're not the only one. The language being used by the...

Suncream, cold remedies and gluten-free food could no longer be available on the NHS in England under a possible crackdown on "low value" medicines. NHS England announced a review after local health bosses identified £400m of spending they believed had little or no clinical value. The...

About half of a £2bn cash boost from the 2014 Autumn Statement for frontline health services in England was spent outside the NHS, research has found. The Health Foundation analysis for the Financial Times showed £901m was spent on buying services from private and non-NHS providers in 2015/16...

A deal between Google's artificial intelligence firm DeepMind and the UK's NHS had serious "inadequacies", an academic paper has suggested. More than a million patient records were shared with DeepMind to build an app to alert doctors about patients at risk of acute kidney injury (AKI). The...

NHS services in England are facing a "mission impossible" to meet the standards required by the government, health bosses say. The warning has been made by NHS Providers, which represents hospital, mental health and ambulance trusts. It said front-line services simply do not have enough money...

Safety at four in five hospital trusts in England is not good enough, a leading hospital inspector has warned. Professor Sir Mike Richards says that the NHS stands on a "burning platform" and that the need for change is clear. His warning follows a review which said staffing and overcrowding...

NHS England is investigating whether any patients have been harmed by an administrative mix-up. Some 500,000 documents containing medical information, including cancer test results, were mistakenly put in storage rather than being sent to the GP or filed in the patients' records. An...

Hospitals could join prisons and social care in a cycle of “crisis, cash, repeat” unless they receive better financial planning and reforms, a Whitehall report has warned. Without improvements, public services are doomed to fail or breach spending controls, the report by the Institute for...

"Public bickering" between the prime minister and the NHS is an "insult to taxpayers" who want clear information on health funding, MPs have said. The House of Commons' Public Accounts Committee (PAC) criticised a dispute between Theresa May and NHS England boss Simon Stevens over finances...

A "truly tobacco-free NHS" needs to be created to help smoker patients quit their habit, health officials say. Only one in 10 hospitals enforces a smoking ban outside health service buildings, and Public Health England (PHE) wants all hospitals to offer help to quit as part of patients'...

STPs 'present an opportunity to move care closer to home and moderate demand for hospital services', the King's Fund report says. But it warns that plans to cut numbers of hospital beds are not credible 'unless investment is first made in services in the community', and that the ongoing NHS...

Four in every 10 European doctors working in Britain are considering leaving the UK following the Brexit vote, a new survey has found. The British Medical Association (BMA) polled 1,193 doctors from the European Economic Area working in the UK and found 42 per cent are thinking of leaving the...

The ongoing A&E crisis has shifted attention on to GPs. We are being blamed for being less accessible (with appointments hard to get or surgeries not being open for long enough), while A&E is open 24/7 and therefore faces unchecked demand. But this makes little sense. You only need to take a...

Winter pressures have caused the NHS to overspend as hospitals and other services have struggled to keep up with demand in England, finance chiefs say. A deficit of nearly £900m was racked up by NHS trusts in the first nine months of the 2016-17 financial year. It comes despite the health...